A Press Release From - Barnett Marketing Communications

For Immediate Release              For More Information, Contact: Ned Barnett 

SSi Consulting and Avalara Form Partnership Alliance

Team Up To Better Serve Small and Medium Businesses in the Mid-Atlantic area

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, Washington, Feb. 25, 2005 – Avalara, provider of the first affordable, on-demand sales tax calculation solution to serve small and medium businesses with integrated ERP solutions, has forged an alliance with SSi Consulting in Baltimore, MD. "Small and medium businesses need a better, more accessible way to calculate sales and use tax for the more than 8,000 distinct U.S. taxing jurisdictions – and we are delivering on those needs with AvaTax ST," explained Avalara's President and Founder, Rory Rawlings. "To help us reach these businesses in the Mid-Atlantic area, SSi Consulting has joined Avalara as our regional Business Partner."

AvaTax ST is currently integrated with some of the SMB market's most popular accounting systems, including Best Software's ACCPAC Advantage Series™, ACCPAC CRM™, MAS 90® and MAS 200®, as well as Microsoft's Great Plains, among others. Other significant accounting-system integration versions of AvaTax ST are scheduled for release later in Q1 and in Q2.

“SSi Consulting provides end-to-end business management software and IT support services for small and medium-sized businesses in the Mid-Atlantic area. They are well-positioned to help their clients and other businesses eliminate sales and use tax complexities by implementing Avalara’s AvaTax ST,” Avalara’s President and Founder Rory Rawlings said.

“We’re excited to become part of Avalara’s network of business partners,” according to Larry Shafer, President at SSi Consulting.  “We recognize that many of our clients have faced the challenge of determining sales and use taxes for a growing number of taxing jurisdictions – and until now, there were no low-cost, highly reliable technology solutions.

"AvaTax ST is an affordable alternative to expensive software installations – and time-consuming updates – or worse, to the error-prone, manual system of sales tax calculation many businesses now employ," Rawlings pointed out. "When taking on sales tax calculations internally, SSi Consultings’ clients have the harrying task of assigning one or several of the more-than-8000 U.S. tax jurisdictions to a customer's location and grouping all applicable rates to the customer. On top of that, these businesses – and businesses throughout American – have the responsibility to track and apply the more than 900 new sales tax law changes that are enacted in the U.S. market each year.

"Other factors," Rawlings noted, "such as product taxability, exemptions, amnesties and a myriad of statutory regulations, which vary state-by-state, must also be taken into account. The more states in which a business has a legal presence, the more complex dealing with sales tax becomes. Savings generated by replacing such a time-intensive, manual updating system with a web-service solution adds directly to the bottom line."

"With over 20 years of experience developing and implementing cost-effective business solutions for their clients, SSi Consulting brings to Avalara a proven record of success in creating value for businesses and developing business technology solutions to clients’ most challenging needs," according to Tom Bemiller, Avalara's Business Development Manager. "As our business partner, SSi Consulting will work directly with clients and prospective end-users – to ensure that their clients – and ours – receive the on-demand sales tax calculation services they need to maximize their own business opportunities."

"We have an aggressive plan to more than double our sales in 2005," Bemiller explained. "To help make this happen, SSi Consulting is an excellent example of the kinds of skilled, experienced Business Partners and allies we are adding to our team in key locations across the U.S and Canada. Our on-demand, integrated sales and use tax service is specifically geared to small and medium businesses," Bemiller said, "and for those companies who match our profile, we can make a significant and direct impact on their bottom line."

About AvaTax ST
Avalara's AvaTax ST is a comprehensive sales tax solution that integrates into small and medium businesses' accounting systems. Instead of taking on the significant burden of assigning and maintaining sales and use tax information for over 8,000 tax jurisdictions nation-wide, Avalara's innovative web service solution performs those tasks.  AvaTax ST also integrates into most e-commerce servers, directly meeting the needs of Internet-based businesses.  AvaTax ST comes with an instant address validation to ZIP +4 service – AutoAddress+ – which ensures correct assignment of tax jurisdiction; the service also includes complete reporting for use at remittance time.

Pricing for AvaTax ST is transaction-based and geared to the SMB market, making total compliance accessible to businesses that have been unable to cost-justify expensive, difficult-to-maintain software solutions.

"AvaTax ST gives businesses, as well as our partners who serve the business community, an opportunity to solve a common, frustrating and costly problem - and in doing so, delivers a cost-effective approach to sales and use tax compliance," Bemiller pointed out.

To learn more about how Avalara can help build your business's bottom line, visit http://www.avalara.com.

To schedule an interview with Avalara President Rory Rawlings, please call Ned Barnett – 702-696-1200 or email Ned at ned@barnettmarcom.com.  To schedule an interview with Larry Shafer at SSi Consulting please call him at (410) 944-3369, or email him at lshafer@ssiconsulting.com

SOURCE: Avalara

For Avalara
Ned Barnett, 702-696-1200
email: Ned@barnettmarcom.com